Ex-fiancee contradicts victim of Mattapan attack

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Tamara Cannon, Hurd’s former fiancee, testified Tuesday that Hurd never identified Dwayne Moore as the gunman.

By Brian Ballou and Maria Cramer
Globe Staff
October 02, 2012

A former girlfriend of Marcus Hurd, the sole survivor of the 2010 Mattapan killings, Tuesday contradicted Hurd’s sworn testimony that he identified Dwayne Moore as the shooter while the couple watched television together.

Moore is being tried a second time in the killings of Simba Martin, 21; his girlfriend, Eyanna Flonory; her 2-year-old son, Amanihotep Smith; and Martin’s friend, Levaughn Washum-Garrison, who were shot on Sept. 28, 2010. Hurd was shot in the head, but survived and is now a quadriplegic.

The first trial — during which Hurd testified he could not identify the shooters — ­resulted in a hung jury for Moore and an acquittal for his codefendant, Edward Washington, 33.

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During three hours of testimony last week, Hurd testified that he withheld information from Boston police and also said that he now can recall who his attacker was. He described one incident when his memory improved.

He said that a couple of months after the shooting, he was watching television with Cannon, who was then his fiancee. When Moore’s face was shown on television, Hurd testified that he turned to Cannon and told her that Moore was the person who shot him.

“ ‘Baby, that’s him right there,’ ” Hurd testified that he told Cannon. “When someone does something like that to you, if you see that person’s face again, you’re going to recognize them.”

But Cannon, 33, disputed her ex-boyfriend’s testimony during questioning by Amabile on Tuesday.

“Do you have any recollection of him watching TV coverage prompting him to make any identification?” Amabile asked.

“No,” Cannon replied.

“He never pointed to the set saying: ‘There’s the man that did this to me.’ Did that happen?” Amabile asked.

“No,’’ Cannon replied.

Cannon was on the stand for about five minutes and was not cross-examined by Edmond Zabin, chief of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s homicide unit, who is prosecuting Moore.

Hurd, a former handyman, said it was the code of silence on Boston streets, not a poor memory, that prevented him from naming Moore as the shooter during the first trial.

Hurd, now 34, said he grew up learning that to cooperate with police was to be a “snitch.”

During Tuesday’s hearing, Amabile asked to recall Hurd to the witness stand but Locke denied that request, saying Hurd had testified at length Friday.

Amabile also asked Locke to prohibit prosecutors from using many of the exhibits they relied on during the first trial, which contained images of the dead victims covered with sheets.

Amabile said Zabin purposely left many of those images on an easel during the trial to elicit sympathy from jurors.

“This was a systematic attempt, starting with the opening statements . . . from stem to stern, start to finish, this was an appeal to sympathy,” Amabile said.

But Locke ordered a modification to only one of the dozen or so visuals, a general overlay map of the neighborhood.

Moore’s retrial is expected to get underway Oct. 11, though Amabile has requested a change in venue, perhaps to Worcester, because intense media coverage would prevent Moore from getting a fair trial in Boston, he said. Locke has not made a decision on that request. Locke is also expected to make a ruling sometime before Oct. 11 on whether to allow Hurd’s new testimony.

Brian Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com. Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com